general

If I ask you to give me a general sense of how a car works, I'm looking for you to describe the two or three main principals in a few minutes, not to open the hood, take apart your engine, and tell me everything you know.

General comes from the French word générale, which means "common to all people," but we use it for more than just people. You might inquire about the general habits of schoolchildren, or the general temperature at night in the desert. And when someone's a general in the army or another organization, like the Surgeon General of the United States, for example, that means they oversee everything. So "general" is a high ranking, because generals are in charge of so many.

(Old Testament) Babylonian general and son of Nebuchadnezzar II; according to the Old Testament he was warned of his doom by divine handwriting on the wall that was interpreted by Daniel (6th century BC)

Chinese military and political figure; in the Chinese civil war that followed World War II he was defeated by the Chinese communists and in 1949 was forced to withdraw to Taiwan where he served as president of Nationalist China until his death (1897-1975)

Indian general and nawab of Bengal who opposed the colonization of India by England; he captured Calcutta in 1756 and many of his prisoners suffocated in a crowded room that became known as the Black Hole of Calcutta; he was defeated at the battle of Plassey by a group of Indian nobles in alliance with Robert Clive (1728-1757)